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Higher Education

I said, let us turn to this issue. The hon. Gentleman should wait a moment. It is too early to say exactly how many students will be able to start university next year. We know that there will be more students participating in higher education next year than there were this year. We also know that of course demand is up, but I remind Opposition Members that at this point last year they were saying that clearing would be over in half a day, that there would be a crisis and that the Government were failing to support students. We saw nothing of the sort: clearing went on for weeks, and thousands of places were available. We did not see the crisis that they predicted, although I see that the word has been used again today. It is too early to say. I do not know whether the hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Christopher Fraser) has a child in the sixth form, or whether he has been into a sixth-form college recently, but I remind him that students have not even taken their mock exams yet. They have not sat their A-levels yet, or received their results. We do not know what they have got, so the funding council has made an estimation. Sir Alan Langlands has said that it is an estimation, so let us see where we get to.